Caribbean island is beyond calypso and cricket
Economic Times: “Beyond the geographic and cultural identity that defines the Caribbean, is the more complex question of a Caribbean cinema aesthetic which has captured the imagination of some writers and critics.The search for the essence of Caribbean cinema has included theories of Creolite, diversity and Negritude from Martinique and Guadeloupe; Negrismo from Cuba; Indigenisme from Haiti; and Pan-Africanism from the English-speaking Caribbean and across the region as a whole. Such cultural movements have inspired some of the classics of Caribbean cinema that deal with the region’s experience of slavery or post-slavery communities.”
These words are from the pen of June Givanni who put together for the 12th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), held sometime back, a thought-provoking and seriously entertaining package of documentaries and fictional films from countries loosely clubbed together under the name ‘Caribbean’. London-based Givanni’s parents are from Guyana, which was represented in the package by a 75-minute documentary dating back to 1978, called The Terror and the Time. The ‘terror’ in the title of the film directed by Rupert Roopnaraine, refers to British colonialism and Cold War imperialism, while the ‘time’ is 1953, the year the first election was held in Guyana under a provisional democratic Constitution, complete with all the lacunae that come with such developments.
Roopnaraine’s film relates the story of the Guyanese people’s fight for independence and self-determination with readings from the poetry of Michael Carter, newspaper headlines about Chedi Jagan and his associates, newsreel footage of other struggles in the same period, and scenes of economic and cultural repression in Guyana of the 1970s. Roopnaraine effectively shows the utter destitution in which the working class in particular was compelled to live and work in an agit-prop style.
A political activist of no mean order, the filmmaker’s resolve for change comes across in every frame of this exceedingly important documentary, which holds lessons for many countries beyond the Caribbean even today. The philosophy and aesthetics of ‘Third Cinema’ that produced several Latin American classics underlining the need for radical change, informs The Terror and the Time from beginning to end.
